As the New Hampshire primary comes to a close, another competitive race is just beginning: the race for one of the New Hampshire Senate seats.
Incumbent Sen. John Sununu, R-N.H., and former Democratic Gov. Jeanne Shaheen, D-N.H., will likely be their parties' nominees for the race, according to several prominent newspapers, including the Union Leader. Linda Fowler, professor of government and a leading expert in congressional politics, said that Shaheen was a moderate governor who angered her liberal base by refusing to support a state income tax. Fowler described Sununu, a conservative Republican, as less moderate than Shaheen. She said that Sununu has recently moderated his stances on environmental issues and the Patriotic Act to appeal to his increasingly liberal constituents.
Most polls have shown Sununu trailing Shaheen as the prospective nominee by up to 10 percentage points. A recent poll by the American Research Group, however, showed Sununu winning 52 percent to 42 percent.
The Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee is focusing on defeating Sununu in New Hampshire because it must gain nine additional seats in the Senate to obtain enough of a majority to override a filibuster. Nationally, the Republican Party must defend 22 Senate seats in the 2008 elections as compared to the Democratic Party's 12.
The Federal Election Commission reported as of Sept. 30 that Shaheen has raised $178,365 for her campaign, while Sununu has raised $2,728,871.
Shaheen and Sununu previously ran against each other in the 2002 Senate race, which Sununu won by four percentage points. Shaheen was ahead in the polls before the election, Fowler said, but the Republican Party launched an extensive 'Get Out The Vote' campaign that brought 30,000 new Republicans to the polls.
Fowler attributed the success of this campaign to last minute involvement by then popular President George W. Bush and the large opposition among state residents to the Democratic gubernatorial candidate, Mark Fernald, who favored a new state income tax.
The 2002 election was also mired in electoral fraud. Leaders of the state's Republican Party have since been jailed for hiring a Republican telemarketing firm to jam the Democrats' 'Get Out The Vote' phone lines the night of the election. There is, however, no evidence that the Sununu campaign was involved, and Fowler expressed skepticism that the fraud changed the results of the election.
According to Fowler, the criminal investigations and subsequent lawsuits following the 2002 election have bankrupted and deeply divided the state's Republican Party, making it much harder for Sununu to raise money for the upcoming election.
Since the 2002 elections, opposition to the President and the War in Iraq has caused New Hampshire to shift to the left, Fowler said. In the 2006 elections, both of the state's two Republican representatives were defeated, and the Democratic Party earned majorities in both chambers of the New Hampshire legislature for the first time since 1874.
Sununu is going to have difficulty overcoming local opposition to President Bush and the Iraq War, Fowler said.
"People think Sununu's a smart guy, but his partisanship and Republican baggage is a big drag," Fowler said. "I'm not going to predict he's going to lose, but he certainly has an uphill battle. He's fighting a lot of headwind."
Although most of the Democratic contenders withdrew from the race when Shaheen announced her candidacy, Dartmouth Medical School professor Jay Buckey is still in the race for the nomination. He said that he believes he is the best candidate because, unlike Sununu and Shaheen, he is not a professional politician.
"Our Founding Fathers did not envision permanent politicians," Buckey said. "Congress should be made up of people who represented and lived in their communities. They didn't want a professional class of politicians."
Despite having never run for public office, Buckey says he believes his background as a doctor, astronaut, and member of the Air Force Reserve give him the experience necessary to serve in the Senate.
Fowler was skeptical that Buckey could overcome his low name recognition to win the nomination, but did add that it is too early in the election season to predict an outcome.
"It's hard to say too much right now because it has been overshadowed by the primary," Fowler said. "It's hard to say what the race is going to look like and what its going to be."
